The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Colorado Avalanche 3-2 at Xfinity Mobile Arena on Monday with a fourth line of Alex Bump, Denver Barkey and Cole Knuble, a combination with roughly a season and a half of NHL experience between them. Trevor Zegras was asked afterwards what he made of them.
“Not a lot of brain cells,” Zegras said. “But they’re good. They’re great.”
Knuble was playing the first game of his career, Bump had been in the American Hockey League four days earlier, and Barkey is in his first full season. Somebody on X had already christened them the BBK line before the night was out.
Why did the Flyers play three rookies on one line?
Owen Tippett was ruled out. Tyson Foerster and Sean Couturier were both carrying knocks. Philadelphia spent Monday morning recalling Bump, Knuble, Hunter McDonald and Jacob Gaucher from Lehigh Valley just to put a full team on the ice, and by the afternoon the fourth line had picked itself.
Bump had given them a reason to call. He scored seven goals in five games with the Phantoms, including a five-game goal streak, and was named AHL Player of the Week for it.
READ MORE: Cole Knuble got a brutal welcome to the NHL on debut
Putting the three of them together was also deliberate. As NBC Sports Philadelphia noted, the Flyers didn’t particularly want their young players spread across the lineup and matched up against Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar all night.
It worked out. Philadelphia, who went into the game at 1-6-3 against an Avalanche side averaging 4.50 goals per game, won for a second straight time with Matvei Michkov scoring twice.
Knuble finished with 13:44 and a story to tell, having been flattened by Josh Manson at the net late in the third and caught in the corner by Noah Juulsen earlier on.
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